Afterthoughts
by pauciloquent
Summary: I am Wiress Jineer, and I am misunderstood. I am invisible, and I am not wanted. I am 7.
1. Chapter 1: Here Again

**A/N: This is the first in a huge, epic series. It was meant to be a one-shot :P**

**Anyway, it's basically about Wiress's life. The entirety of it. This story will be about some parts of her life between ages of 7-11, with flashbacks in between.**

I sit on a little wooden stool in a tiny, cramped room that smells of fear. I don't like fear. It makes me shudder.

Right now, I am shivering with cold. I wasn't allowed to wear anything more than a pair of thin shorts and a cotton t-shirt that hangs loosely on me. It's below freezing, judging by my rough estimation. What were they thinking? I'm not even wearing shoes or socks. My toes are a vivid, bruised blue.

But if only I wasn't radiating with that dreaded, stupid fear right now! Then I would be less cold. I still don't like fear. I can't imagine anyone who does.

"Wiress Jineer!" a voice booms. I hug my knees and close my eyes.

My entire family was and still is gone. Poof. Missing.

Ever since I was born, I think. I was just abandoned somewhere as a baby. Unwanted. They sent me to the Community House, but I ran away when I was 4. Now I'm 7. I have not killed anybody. I have not commited some vicious crime. Why am I here again?

I am an orphan. O-r-p-h-a-n. I don't like that word. I don't like the way it lingers coldly on my tongue. Now I probably have hypothermia.

I used to live below a small factory, in the basement, to be exact. All by myself. I never disturbed anyone. I used the things they considered garbage for my survival. Apple peels. Broken bits of wire. It was staunching for my growth, surely, but I lived. I'm still alive, I think. Maybe or maybe not.

But the best thing was that I didn't know about the Hunger Games. No way. I just sat there, built little electrical contraptions to give me heat and warmth and a little bit of sunshine, false as it is, ate bits of apple peel now and then, and waited.

I didn't kill anybody. I didn't commit crime.

Why am I misunderstood?

Now they've sent me back to this dreaded Community House. I've been exposed and discovered. I've been interrogated as if I'm a surly criminal. But all I am is a skinny 7-year-old who has a basic knowledge of engineering. I haven't killed anybody.

They've told me all about the Hunger Games, things I wish I didn't hear. About the Avoxes, that grand old lustful Capitol. They make it seem as if it's a lovely thing. To view the killing of children for a vile perception of entertainment. I hate it.

Avoxes are like me, from what I've heard. Can't speak. Not fair.

I can't speak either, not really. I never finish. Not out loud.

Maybe it's because of some "crime" I committed. Maybe it's because my entire family is cursed with nonexistence and I'm the last one standing. Like a row of dominoes. And now I'm the only one left. I'll topple soon, too.

Why can't I talk like a normal person again?

Nobody understand what I try to say. Sometimes I don't, either.

They don't now, either. I try to tell them that I never did any wrong, but all that comes out is,

"I never—"

and they finished with

"Heard of such a magnificent sense of beauty? Why, of course! This is the Capitol, dear. We are the only beauty the world has left. We're all up for admiration."

I growl somewhat inaudibly. The foolish Сapitol lady is still smiling that fake, polished smile. The Capitol man is doing the same. Smiling an ugly, acid smile.

They didn't hear me growl. Which is just as well, because I'm sure that somehow, somewhere, it's illegal to growl at someone of Capitol status.

I hug my knees more tightly now and cry silently. They see me cry, and inquisitively ask me what's wrong. At least they have a sense of compassion.

I feel sorry for them, too. It's not their fault that they were born in this foolish Capitol world. If they were born in my district, or in any of the districts for that manner, I'd think differently. I'm a terrible person.

I cry hysterically now, but it's still silent. They might as well cut out my tongue now, it wouldn't make a difference.

I'm brought into a room in the Community House. There's a little cot, and a desk with a lamp on it. It looks like it's been fitted with a low-watt bulb. I suppose I can work in the dark if I have to. There isn't a cabinet with clothes or anything. I suppose that these are the only clothes I'll ever wear. The ones I have in my possession right now. There isn't much else, but there are walls, of course, steel ones, and a ceiling with a lonely light bulb hanging from it. It appears to be short-circuited. _No big deal, _I think. _I can fix it if I have to. And if I can't, there are plenty of purposes for broken wire and shards of glass. _The ceiling's low. I can touch it with the tip of my finger by going on the tips of my toes, and I'm short even for District 3. The Capitolites, however, are standing there quite pathetically, shoulders hunched, looking uncomfortable. They tell me to get suited to my new room and leave quite simply.

This isn't the room I had lived in before. It's different. But it's still very coldly familiar. I don't like this feeling.

I think that all the rooms here are identical, like in a prison. I remember that when I was very small, the first time I lived here, we weren't allowed to communicate with anyone else while in the Community House. The kids who were old enough for school, of course, could talk there. But not me, the little toddler. I think this is why I can't finish my sentences. I have so much to say, but I just don't know how to say it.

I don't even know how to be around people anymore.

I remember that I wasn't allowed to bring anything with me from my little basement in that factory. All of my gadgets, the ones that could have made my life so much easier here…

I sigh and look around. Metal on metal. I don't like it. It makes me feel even colder than I was before. I think I have frostbite too. I shiver in the aloofness of it all. I am alone. That's a fact.

A fact I've known for quite a while. But not so much as this. I know too much now. Too much sadness to know. I need to forget it. But I'm too good at remembering.

I need to finish…my…

I will somehow…someday, I'll…

Someday, I'll do something important. I'll make myself recognized, even if I'm forgotten afterwards. I don't want to just sit here and wait even more. I want to do something important.

My eyes grow wide. How can I possibly do all that in this stupid, infantile Community House?

This is how my new, unfortunate life begins at the meek age of 7.

**A/N: Reviews make me happy, and when I'm happy, I write more. So please review! And don't favorite or add this to alerts without telling me why. **


	2. Chapter 2: Flashback: Part 1: Running

**Flashback**

_Running. Nothing but running. _

_That cold orphanage they call a Community House. Everyone there was cold to me. I never talked. Never ever. I didn't want to. They thought I was insane._

_It's so sad, an insane toddler. Maybe it's true. But I don't care. It's me._

_I'm four now. I can talk all I want. I'm not insane. I'm perfectly fine, thank you, and I can do whatever I want._

_So I'm running now._

_They haven't found out, not yet. I've packed a small bag with all my common things—clothes, a bit of rope and wire, a pair of binoculars, a few apples and a first-aid kit. And some treasured things, too. My mechanical blue giraffe, the one I was holding when I was abandoned as a baby. I think it has meaning, so I keep it. I pretend it's a real giraffe sometimes. I sing nursery rhymes to it. And then there's my watch. It's obviously useful for keeping time, but it's so comforting, somehow. Knowing that you have a piece of the world on your wrist. _

_I'm running still. I hope my tracks will get erased. The soil here isn't fertile in any way, so subsequently it's dry and dusty, like sand, which is probably what it is; and you can't see footprints very well in it. Plus, the fog will cover it up. There's a lot of fog in the technology district._

_Not too much, though. I can still see where I'm going._

_If there wasn't too much fog and it wasn't the middle of the night, it would be a strange sight; a 4-year-old girl traveling the streets of 3 with a suitcase, all alone. At least it's the middle of the night._

_I see lots of lights turned on, though. Many of the people here work late into the night. I used to do that in the three years I lived in the Community House. I'll do it again, but in a different place._

_Somewhere where I'll be useful._

_That factory, just across the street where I'm standing. I've made up my mind._


	3. Chapter 3: Flashback: Part 2: Safe

_I'm running still, but slowly now. Slower. Not fast. _

_The purely metal building seems to be staring straight at me. I feel as if it has a pair of steely grey eyes, watching me intently. So I stare back. I scrutinize the building's every detail with my own steely grey eyes, every window and every door. Everything there is grey. I'm on the footsteps of it now, right at the entrance. But I don't enter. Not just yet._

_I sit down on the cold concrete and look at the building some more. Honestly, if you didn't look hard enough, it would be impossible to distinguish it from the other buildings in District 3. With the combined factors of the grey fog, the grey ashes, and the grey everything here (including the people), well, it would be hard._

_The only way to tell whether you're looking at a human being, in fact, is by the hair. Everyone in 3 has shiny dark hair. It usually looks black in the fog, but I'm sure that some people might have dark brown or even just plain brown hair. _

_Everything else is grey: grey clothes, ashen skin. _

_It's impossible to remove the ash. Everyone wakes up with a new layer of it on their skin, and some people don't even try to get it off, especially not the factory workers. _

_I still look at the building. I can see something written on it. It looks like "Wire Manufacturers". Something like that. _

_The door I'm standing in front of is at least a few yards taller than I am. Either the door is gigantic, or I'm a midget. That last bit is probably true._

_Still carrying my little suitcase, I open the door just a crack and slip inside. Though it's the middle of the night, I can see a few people still working behind conveyor belts, threading wires of all kinds. But not too many._

_They don't seem to notice me. I scurry quickly behind an open cabinet, observing the almost metallic quality of the wood-ish material the cabinet is made of. Is everything here this cold?_

_I see a flight of stairs that moves downward. It's right behind the cabinet. Near the stairs is a sign on which the word "basement" is written. It looks like it hasn't been used for a long, long while, covered in dust and more ash than the rest of this place (which I didn't know was possible). I decide to go down the stairs to see what's in store for me. It may serve as a pretty decent home._

_I do as my thoughts tell me to. The flight of stairs is quite long, but not too tedious for my four-year-old self. Ash falls from the ceiling, but I'm used to it. Finally I descend the full flight, meeting a diminutive but considerably decent room that is, not surprisingly, also full of ash and dust. It's barren other than a small shelf lining the wall. I think it was meant to be used for storage originally, but just…overlooked. I guess this basement was just built as an afterthought, in case somebody needed it. But they don't. I do, though._

_I like this room. Though it is pretty dismal, it isn't as strict and dull as my old room in the Community House. Not a bit of metal in sight; the walls are made of grey stone brick, and the floor used to be wood, but is now an ashy color._

_I'll find something to use as a bed and whatever else I need. Food? I've seen plenty of factory workers trudging to their workplaces from my small window (which, thankfully, was one of the few in the orphanage that faced the street), carrying small bags of food for their lunches. I can live off the scraps. Orphanage food isn't exactly a delicacy, you know._

_Right now, it's the middle of summer, so it isn't that cold in this room. In fact, I'm actually beginning to feel quite warm. But in the winter, I'll have to find something to give me warmth. I'll find it._

_I remember something about summer. I found this history book once. A week ago, in fact. In it, it said that once, a long time ago, children and adults were relieved of school and work, respectively, in the summer…but not anymore. _

_No wonder everyone I see is exhausted to the bone._

_It does apply to the Capitol citizens, though. That's what it said shortly afterward._

_I also found a section titled "History of the Rebellion" or something like that. But I decided not to read it, because it sounds too tragic to me. I don't want to know what it's about. When I was skimming through that section, I remembered the phrase in there that was frequent, "The Hunger Games". I didn't get a very good feeling from that phrase._

**A/N: Yes, Wiress is four years old at this point in time, and yes, she can read and use pretty advanced vocabulary, but don't forget, this is Wiress. **

**Shout-out to A Beautiful Beast, Crazy Female LEPrecon, and Kassandra Lorelei for reviewing! *hands sugar cookies***

**Now, this flashback, I'm afraid, will continue for several more chapters. Then the actual plot-line will start. All flashbacks will be in italics.**

**Several other flashbacks within the story may exist, too, but I haven't decided yet.**


	4. Chapter 4: Flashback: Part 3: Found

_I sit down on the floor for a second, deep in thought._

_I can hear footsteps. Gingerly, I scamper up the stairs in my soft, worn, and consequently quiet shoes. The few factory workers I saw earlier are now exiting the factory for their homes, covered in ash from head to toe. _

_There are coils of wire all over the place, as well as other things. There's a bag of fabric in the corner. Why a bag of fabric?_

_Then I remember._ This is what they use to wrap the wires with, _I think. _For protection against the electrical currents.

_I could use some of it. It's a considerably large bag—to me, it seems monstrous—so I gather up two small pieces that I could use as a blanket and a pillow, and another to use as a cot. I bring them back down to the basement, and I have my bed._

_It's considerably more comfortable than the stiff mattresses in the Community House, even though it's makeshift. _

_I unpack my suitcase and set it in one of the four completely bare corners of the room, along with all of my things. _

_I spend the next few minutes—or at least, they seem like minutes—roaming the factory. I find many useful things, but I don't take any, because I think the factory workers might need them. _

_I return to the stairs._

_It's extremely dark in my little basement, but I like it. The darkness is like a blanket. It's comforting._

_I think it's around midnight or maybe even later than that. Five in the morning? I check a clock which I know from memory I had passed by earlier. Sure enough, it's five in the morning. How did I…_

_I settle in my homemade bed and close my eyes, waiting for the ash and the changes that morning would surely bring._

_.::THE NEXT DAY::._

_I wake up, well rested. Ash falls from the ceiling like snow, and I find that I'm covered in it. I might as well get used to it._

_I hear footsteps, but not too many. I trod up the stairs as quietly as I possibly can. Dodging behind the cupboard for cover, I peek through a crack in the doorknob. _

_Judging by the amount of light that streams through the small windows in this factory, I would say it's about four in the afternoon. I can see golden rays of light, stopped in their tracks by icy streams of direct sunshine that makes my eye sockets burn. I turn my eyes away from them as soon as I can._

_I see the clock, too. It ticks and tocks at me slowly, as if sounding out a word. It seems to say…four in the afternoon._

_I can see quite a few things from here, but I don't have a full, rounded view of everything. Yet I'll have to stay undercover for a long, long time. _

_I go back down the stairs, when suddenly; I hear footsteps following me that aren't mine. I go down quickly now. Not just quickly, but quicker._

_What will happen if I'm discovered? Harsh punishments were given by the orphanage staff to everyone who ran away, and those punishments, I'm afraid, are of the kind I'd rather not recall._

_What if I AM discovered?_

_I hug my knees. I remember the clock. It was comforting._

_My watch! I take it out and stare at it for a while for no apparent reason. I do that sometimes._

_I whisper its melody along with it._

_Tick, tock, tick, tock…_

_I hear more footsteps. I'll be discovered! I start to panic._

_I panic more._

_With lack of sufficient hiding area, I crawl under my crude blankets and await my sad fate. Surely my toes are sticking out?  
_

_I see a human shadow come into view. Shortish, but that's very understandable._

_A hand lifts the blankets off of me. I panic more now, but stop suddenly._

_I open my eyes and see a short (again, understandable), glasses-clad 13 or 14-year old looking curiously at me._

"_What's your name?" he inquires._

"_Wi…ress. Wiress Jineer," I answer as loudly as I can manage, which isn't very audible in itself. I shudder silently. Again, for no apparent reason._

"_Wiress? Oh, like the word 'wire', but with –ess at the end…I see. I like your name. It suits you. I think that if you were a bit less shy, you would be brimming with electricity. Right now, it's just stored inside you."_

_I think that was a compliment, so I smile a bit._

"_My name is Beetee Connec," he continues. "I'm 14, and I work here after school as part of the district requirements. How old are you?"_

"_F-four," I reply faintly. _

"_You seem very smart for your age." He pushes his ill-suited glasses up on the bridge of his nose and scrutinizes my basement. "Is this where you live?"_

"_Y-yes…but I used to…"_

"_You used to live in the Community House. The orphanage. I can tell. Did you run away?"_

"_How did y-you—"_

"_How did I know? I honestly can't answer that question."_

"_Well, I, um…Yes, I did run away from the orphanage. I didn't…I didn't like it there. It was too lonely there for me. I want to be around people again, people who pay attention to me and actually understand me. At the Community House, everyone thought I was insane. It wasn't…"_

"_Fair. I can tell."_

"_Are you going to…to tell…"_

"_Am I going to tell the orphanage staff about your whereabouts? No! I don't think you deserve such a place. I should know; I used to live there myself."_

"_W-why?"_

"_My parents were missing since I was three, so they sent me to the Community House. I don't have any good memories of that place. But my parents…they were found when I was 10. People thought that they were killed in a factory explosion, but actually, they found a way to survive it, and consequently did NOT die. However, the extreme—well, even for here—quantities of ash from the fire somehow induced amnesia in some strange, almost impossible way…maybe a chemical from the fuel of the flames?_

"_Anyway, the main reason why I couldn't find them was because I couldn't remember what they looked like. I was too small for the memory. And there were no photographs lying around anywhere of them. They kept all the photos in the factory, and they…they were burned in the fire. Nobody really paid attention to them. They were only hired at the factory as an afterthought. They needed extra workers, so they hired them, even though most people thought they lost their marbles a while ago, for a reason I just can't comprehend. So that's why I could only rid myself of the orphanage at the age of 10. But I live with my parents now."_

"_Your parents…they must be really smart. Do they still work at the factory?"_

"_No, they own a small business. A clock repair shop. So we aren't too poor or anything. We get along fine, but not really that well."_

"_May I see the shop?"_

"_Certainly."_

_**A/N: As confusing as it seems, the following section is a flashback WITHIN a flashback. So, it will be **__underlined italics.__**Like that. The rest of the section, in just plain **__italics, __**is a regular flashback, where Wiress is 4.**_

**Four Years Earlier**

_A little girl is seeing her world for the first time. Her mother, Tricity, had given birth to her not long ago, right in their tiny apartment, cluttered with tools and inventions and wonderful things, the apartment that rests on the outskirts of 3. It's very close to 4; you could almost see the waves of water that shone at night, if you squinted and if you were using binoculars._

"_What should we name her?" she asks, smiling as she sees her curious-eyed daughter for the first time._

_The father, Ohmel, smiles as well. _

"_We should name her Wiress. She looks like she has a lot of stored energy…electricity. Liveliness. Like a wire."_

"_Wiress Jineer. I like the way it sounds."_

_Wiress, newly named, opens her huge grey eyes even wider. The shining pupils gleam with excitement. She looks out their small window that's covered with a thick buildup of ash and dust and mildew. She reaches out and wipes away some of it, and looks outside._

_She sees tears of joy coming from someone out there. She sees a boy, hugging two people who look like her parents—people who love him. _

_Suddenly, she hears a scream. She sees a shadow from the roof of the building. The room is encased with darkness._

_People come in. Scary-looking people. They are wearing something, something that looks orderly but cold. They take her parents away._

_Wiress sits there, widens her eyes in curiosity; and then, she realizes something._

_She doesn't quite see what's going on; being a newborn baby, she has synesthesia, as all newborns do. She has her senses all mixed up, so when she hears a scream, she sees the color black._

_Endless black. It scares her. She feels scared now. She starts to cry._

_Where are her parents going? _

_She feels somebody pick her up, and put her in a quilted box. She's carried through rain and ash and dust and endless shadows of misery and despair. She sees the bespectacled boy looking at her inquisitively, a sorrowed look on his face. He points to her and says something to his parents, who say something about her. A tear drips down his face, but it could have been rain._

_She's dropped off on the doorsteps of a cold, metallic place that makes her hear the painful noise of nails screeching on a chalkboard. She shudders. Somebody cold-fingered picks her up and carries her through the endless hallways here. She can't tell where she is, but the boy knows._

_It's the Community House._

**Back to the Flashback**

"_Wiress? Are you—are you there?"_

"_Oh, I was just having a…memory. A flashback. You seem really familiar."_

"_I think I've seen you before. The day that I was reunited with my parents—there were Capitol hovercrafts flying above where we were. Two people were taken by one of the hovercrafts, and I saw a newborn baby being carried out of the building. It was four years ago. You're four now. That was…"_

"_The same day. It happened on the same day," I comment in realization. That's the boy who was looking at me, the day I was born. It's one of my few memories of infancy._

"_Is that what happened to your parents? Were they taken away?"_

"_I think so."_

"_Would you like to live here, Wiress? I could bring you food and things sometimes. Maybe you could even meet my—"_

"_Parents. Yes, Beetee. I do want to live here."_

**A/N: This is where the flashbacks end. Completely. (For now.) This is where I am going to, ahem, draw a blank. (I can almost hear you screaming "cliche" in agony and pain.) I am going to update as soon as possible because I have decided to let you suffer no longer. I hope, anyway. I'm working on Chapter 5 right now. **


	5. Chapter 5: Unhappy

It has been many years since that day, that beautiful day… I didn't even have to live in the factory, like I thought I would. I remember Beetee leading me to his parents' house, where I was offered shelter and comfort and … visibility. Nobody really noticed me before. Beetee was like an older brother, and his parents like mine. I loved this feeling.

I lived a quaint, happy existence. But then Beetee's parents got promoted; they worked in the Capitol against their own will and never saw neither Beetee nor I again. They probably live successfully now; but not happily. I miss them so.

Beetee stayed in the factories and his parents' clock repair shop was closed and hidden from society. It was torn down later, to make room for another factory. A bomb factory.

I never saw them again, and I doubt I will now. But I suppose there's always room for hope, cliché as that may sound.

My room in the Community Home is musty and dreary and not very well acquainted for a child; but then again, what should I expect? This is a Community Home. I think its title is overrated and false. This is the opposite of both a community and a home. Just a sick and cold white place. Like a hospital.

I hug my knees and sit on the tiny cot. It's as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. The joints are rigid steel and the fabric is a starched, faded cotton (that feels more like cardboard) that is barely strong enough to support the weight of a human being.

There is no comfort in this room whatsoever. The desk may be my only source of entertainment, but at least I have a source. It's not very large, but it's larger than I had expected it to be. It's big enough to hold 3 pieces of paper held edge-to-edge. That's good. It's made out of a sort of metal and chills me when it brushes against my skin. The only downside, of course, is that there are no pencils or paper, or anything of that sort. I am not brave enough to ask for either, yet. I haven't gotten used to the place, even after being a former visitor in this ghastly "home".

It is night, and very dark. I can tell, though there are no windows. I hear a cricket chirp, which is a rare and lovely occurrence in 3, and always happens very late at night for some reason. Also, there's a sort of chill in the air at night here in 3 – but not the kind that my new desk gives me. It's more of a pleasant chill, a kind that warms me up at the same time and makes me buzz with thought. It's strange that 3's nights are so piquant; is that why we specialize in thought? Something in the air?


End file.
